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What are you reading?

I’m currently finishing up “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander. This book was referenced within the novel, so I decided to buy it.

Lately, I find myself being drawn to insightful books that give perspective on life as an African American in America, pertaining specifically to socio-economic, cultural and racial disparities between blacks (poc) and whites.

There has been so much dialogue involving government conspiracies to deconstruct, devalue and demoralize this group of people (my people) specifically starting from the break down of slavery. I know plenty of people who like to argue that slavery was so long ago that the effects of it couldn’t possibly still be felt within the black community.

I disagree, yes slavery happened a long time ago, but those people forget that black people have only been free in America for about one hundred fifty/sixty years and it wasn’t something that the people who once owned slaves were necessarily ecstatic about complying with.

Proceeding slavery, yet another form of degradation towards blacks, segregation which was abolished with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, again this feat was met with anger and violence from some of America’s white citizens the same citizens whose family members probably participated in the owning of slaves or people who feared the possibility of no longer being a part of the dominant racial class in America.

I’ve learned that learning (and teaching my children) about history (especially history pertaining to African American’s) is solely my responsibility, if I made reference to what I’ve learned throughout my American historical education experience; slavery wasn’t so bad and actually benefited blacks in the long run, Native Americans were the antagonists and our government wants the best for the its people (please kill yourself if you believe any of the latter to be truth).

3 thoughts on “What are you reading?”

“American Apartheid” sounds like a great, and very informative, read – I just found an online copy of it, and can’t wait to get started! Yes, if one wishes to learn the real story about how POC (especially African Americans) have been treated throughout the history of this country, you have to do all of your own research. I was watching a spanish-language movie with my husband this weekend, and there was a reference made to the slave ship “Amistad”… turns out he’d never heard of it, and he’d never been taught about the rough (to put it mildly) conditions on ships like that. So, I dug out the ’97 movie about it, and we watched. He was horrified. Another surprise for me: we were talking about names – he was interested in finding out what his hebrew name means, and asked if I knew. I did, and that somehow led to him asking me why my dad has an Irish last name. When I told him that many (if not most) black people in this country have non-African last names because of slavery, he looked shocked. He said it was really starting to sink in that black people have been robbed of (among other things) their heritage in this country.

As for what I’ve been reading… two things: “In Sheep’s Clothing” by George K. Simon, and “I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me” by Jerold J. Kreisman & Hal Straus. They’re both about psychological disorders – the first is about how to handle manipulative people, and the second is about understanding people with severe BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). They’re both pretty good reads, and they’re spot-on with the behaviors my mother exhibited growing up.

Wow, I’m glad you were able to inform your husband, “our” history is also his history. It’s a shame some people and public educational institutions don’t feel the need to really inform our children of the harsh realities that is American history. Those books sound really interesting I’m off to kindle and ebay to look them up. 🙂

Exactly! I’m glad too. I’ve always been kind of sad that we know the “real” names from my mom’s side of the family, but not from my dad’s. We know that his African ancestors probably came from Chad, and we have photos of the Native American relatives from the 1800’s… but we have none of their real names – they were all replaced with what would’ve been called “Christian” names. Yeah, I’m getting really tired of seeing our history constantly being white-washed, and constantly receiving the message that I’m not allowed to be proud of my black heritage. Oh yeah, those books are pretty interesting, and I can’t wait to read “American Apartheid”.